Creation Stories

Hinduism - Brahma (God) had a dream and from that dream came everything that appears to exist. Brahma has no characteristics, no feelings, no essence. It is indescribably nothing. Everything in the world is actually maya or illusion. It does not really exist. Man will eventually be dissolved back into Brahma and all of the things that make him unique will disappear back into Brahma.

Islam - Allah was in the beginning totally separate from man. He is utterly transcendent and unknowable. The greatest sin in Islam is to claim any similarity with Allah. This is known as shirk. Jesus is revered as a prophet, but to call him the Son of God is blasphemous. There is no idea of a compassionate God to be found within the Koran.

Atheism - There is no god. God is a creation of the strong to hold the weak in their thrall. God is a concept used to control people. Evolution was an invention by atheists to create a world were a creator was not needed. If pushed to its logic conclusions, atheism concludes that man is nothing more than a cosmic accident. Why not termites as Lords of the universe? Man won the cosmic evolutionary lottery. As a result, atheism ultimately devalues human life. Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin and Hitler were men who took atheism to its ultimate conclusions. Man simply happened and will disappear once again. He came from no where and is going no where.

Buddhism - They can be either atheists (miniyana) or theists (mahayana). God is either not definable or doesn't exist.

These are creation stories... The myriad creation accounts all stem from the original, unembellished account of Biblical creation.

Religion as Child Abuse

There is a very disturbing trend growing within atheist apologetics. In the new paradigm, atheists desire to remove all religious influences from the upbringing of children. More and more atheist voices assert that Christians are the worst of child abusers; forcing their irrational religious dogma on young minds of mush. Destroying all potential for scientific inquiry, Christians are the worst of the lot.

How quickly do the atheists forget the forefathers of science. The forefathers of science were the strongest of Christians. Among them, you may find Johannes Keppler, Isaac Newton, the Wright brothers, George Washington Carver, Samuel F.B. Morse and a host of others.

Science was once enlivened by men and women who searched an ordered universe for the handiwork of God. The reason why they even searched to begin with was because they began with the premise that there was order to be found since an intelligent Designer had made all things. Science was the discovery of the wonders of God and was an act of worship.

Without these men and women, science would never have fluorished, yet today, pious atheists can speak of religious education as "child abuse". What rubbish.

Atheism Delusion

Dinesh D'Souza is rapidly becoming a new voice to rival C.S. Lewis in the apologetic landscape. His debates with reputable atheists are producing new apologetic material.

One of his debate partners publishes Skeptic magazine. In one of the current issues, atheist David Sloan Wilson critiques fellow atheist Richard Dawkins.

Wilson begins, "Richard Dawkins and I share much in common. We are both biologists by training who have written widely about evolutionary theory." Moreover, "We are both atheists in our personal convictions." Then Wilson gets to his point. "When Dawkins' The God Delusion was published, I naturally assumed he was basing his critique of religion on the scientific study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. I regret to report otherwise. He has not done any original work on the subject and he has not fairly represented the work of his colleagues." Rather, Dawkins has subjected his atheist readers to "sleights of hand." He has produced a "diatribe against religion" that is "deeply misinformed." Indeed he is "just another angry atheist trading on his reputation as an evolutionst and spokesperson for science to vent his personal opinions about religion."

Devastating stuff. Wilson examines Dawkins' central claim that religion is an obvious "delusion." On the contrary, Wilson writes, religion is in general more adaptive for human communities than atheism. "On average, religious believers are more prosocial than non-believers, feel better about themselves, use their time more constructively, and engage in long-term planning, rather than gratifying their impulsive desires...They report being more happy, active, sociable, involved and excited."

D'Souza's full article may be found at Townhall.com.

Beware of Atheists Bearing Gifts

As with every religious holiday, we can expect an attack on the institution of Christianity this season. During past holidays, we have had the release of the DaVinci Code, the revamping of the Gospel of Judas, the re-emergence of the Gospel of Thomas -- all spurious and all containing half-baked theories concerning the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

This year the attack may be more subtle. Theaters are currently playing the movie The Golden Compass. Its author, Philip Pullman is an enemy of Christ. Pullman hates the writings of C.S. Lewis and has written his series to directly counter Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. He has left little doubt about his books' intended thrust in discussions of his works, such as noting in a 2003 interview that "My books are about killing God" and in a 2001 interview that he was "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief."

A Los Angeles Times article on the Golden Compass controversy noted that:

Pullman's never hidden his skepticism about God or his rejection of organized religion. A quick Internet search turns up a 2004 essay he wrote deploring "theocracies" for a newspaper in his native Britain, and his own Web site states that he thinks it "perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it." His "Dark Materials" features a sympathetic character, an ex-nun, who describes Christianity as "a very powerful and convincing mistake," while "The Amber Spyglass" concludes with the two child heroes participating in the dissolution of "the Authority," a senile, pretender God who has falsely passed himself off as the creator of the universe.

The movie has been sanitized so as not to blatantly offend America's Christian audiences. However, there is no doubt that the movie will popularize the more scurrilous books. Christians should vote with their wallets and not view the movie. If The Golden Compass fares well at the box office, Hollywood will no doubt gauge this as encouragement to wage a more open war on faith.

The Unforgiveable Sin and the Blasphemy Challenge

A wonderful pastor friend of mine wrote to me about the Blasphemy Challenge last week. The Blasphemy Challenge was a promotional activity sponsored by the Rational Response Squad, a new breed of militant atheists who are busy developing their perception that they are a martyr or under-privileged class.

If you have browsed through Youtube.com to look at some of the videos of those who have "renounced the Holy Spirit," your heart will no doubt be grieved. Thousands have taken the challenge and not-so-boldly, but ever-so-defiantly looked into their webcam to denounce the existence of God. Their ages vary from the pre-pubescent to the aged. Their socio-economic class ranges from the affluent atheist to the still dependent, stay-at-home computer geek. But they all feel proud of their moment to announce independence from the tyrant God.

Perhaps most tragic and laughable is that they are not accomplishing the unpardonable sin. Per most Biblical expositors that I have read, the unpardonable sin is to deny the works and person of God when he has personally manifested Himself. The specific scenario was when the Pharisees attributed a healing by Christ through the Holy Spirit to the work of Satan (Matthew 12:22-30). Confronted by the very person (Jesus) and works (the healing) of God, they refused to believe. When God was at his most persuasive through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Pharisees chose to cling to disbelief.

Those that participate in the Blasphemy Challenge have likely not had the opportunity to commit the unpardonable sin. Are they walking dangerously? Absolutely. However, I think that we will find many of these 'denouncers' with us in heaven after Christ beckons to them. Such was Paul at one time.

Note: I would welcome different perspectives on what constitutes the unpardonable sin.

Evolutionary Musings

Paradigms shift all of the time. Hundreds of years ago, it was the common consensus that the solar system revolved around the earth. The science textbooks changed and a new paradigm entered the scene. The beliefs of science are in constant flux. If the world lasts, a thousand years from now, our progeny will scorn our shallow understanding of the world. Compared to eternity future, we are but still at the beginning, playing with the dust and pebbles of the universe while thinking we are doing something grand.

Evolution is a paradigm that is in grievous trouble.

Fred Hoyle of the British Academy of Science and mathematician Chandra Wickramasinghe decided to calculate the probability of life coming into existence anywhere in the universe. Their results? Utterly impossible. They gave it all the time in the universe, but time plus chance produces nothing!

Francis Crick, Noble Prize winner for his discovery of DNA, also attempted to calculate the probability that life sprang into existence spontaneously. His results? Utter impossible. Instead of jumping into the arms of God, Crick decided to propagate the theory of genetic panspermia. In sum, his theory propounded that life on earth was seeded by benevolent and mighty aliens. Their work made life possible through the path of evolution. The problem? Crick merely delayed the impossible, casting it back on a continuous regression of aliens.

Stephen J. Gould, one of the greatest defenders of evolution, was also troubled by issues that he saw within evolution. As a result, he came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium. He postulated that there were sudden leaps in evolution that left no transitional forms. If only he had made one massive leap, he would have ended up where theists are today.

Are these the actions of men that believe that the evolutionary paradigm is secure?

While the defenders of evolution are resorting to new and stunning conjecture to cover the nakedness of evolution, intelligent design has been seeking to topple the entire infrastructure.

The simple design of a mousetrap is irreducibly complex, no one part of the mousetrap makes sense without all of the other pieces. The evolution of a species or a single organ is also irreducibly complex. Take for example the eye. The eye is composed of mechanisms that are entirely reliant upon one another for the eye to function at all. If evolution is true, each part of the eye evolved over time and accrued in aggregate form. Unfortunately, the individual parts of the eye do not promote the survivability of the animal. They may actually impede its survivability. Over millions of years, the evolutionist would have us believe that the portions of the eye accrued until we had a complete and functional organ.

Another stake in the heart of evolution is the absence of transitional forms. Darwin predicted that this would be the downfall of his theory. Nothing has been found. Frauds have been created such as Piltdown man, Java man and a host of other oddities found to be made out of bits of extinct pigs, apes, etc., but nothing definitive has been offered to support the claims of evolution. If nothing else, our excavations should lead us to conclude that life was more complex and varied in the past than it is at present. This concurs with the concept of entropy.

The third law of thermodynamics is at odds with evolution. Time and chance lead to a loss of genetic information, the accretion of deleterious and deadly mutations. Per the evolutionary model, the very environment that may have produced the earliest protein chain is the same environment that would wipe it out in the next second. Life and entropy teach us that life is fragile.

The fossil record has yielded no evidence for evolution. Fossil beds contain a mixture of species and life forms from supposedly different evolutionary eras all at the same level of excavation. The geological column, which is purported to have taken millions of years to form, is riddled with issues. Dozens of museums have fish and other creatures that are tipped on end in the column. These fossils, know as polystratigraphic fossils, pass through millions of years of evolutionary deposition and sedimentation. How could a fish stand on end over millions of years while it was covered by sedminent? Evolutionists recognize these as “mysteries”.

I’m not attempting to be exhaustive with this list of problems, but the list goes on forever!

If evolution is true, there is no meaning or purpose to the world. We are merely spinning out our days on a not-so-extraordinary speck in the universe. Everything is chemically driven and determined. My love for my spouse has nothing noble within it. I’m merely driven by my biological urges to secure a mate that will perpetuate the species. Emotions over the death of my father are merely a chemically induced warning to avoid those things that limit my survivability. The only drive is sexual, the only moral is survival and there is no answer for anything.

"Nature is red in tooth and claw" is the summation of the evolutionary virtue. By bloodshed the fittest survive, but to what end? Morals are irrelevant. To push an old lady into oncoming traffic or to help her across the street are of equal value; both are meaningless. One might even argue that pushing the old lady into the street opens an ecological niche for a contributing member of the species. As one geneticist one argued with me, adultery and fornication are evolutionary values. They create genetic diversity.

Several scientists have recognized the problem in not having a center upon which to build society, ethics and morals. They have embraced the creation of what they call a “Noble Lie”; the creation of a belief system akin to Christianity. Let us create something to believe in that will allow us to continue our meaningless, mediocre existence. In the end, is it not still a lie?

In a world that is merely a cosmic accident, does even science have any meaning? Is it not merely a search without purpose and a quest without answers? Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.